shore. The dock they have on shore is my launch pad to get to the lighthouse. I used to leap to the island and then leap up to the walk-about up top, but I’ve gotten so much better with controlling my leaps that I can now leap directly to the roof of the lighthouse. Then I slip down to the walk-about. I am always looking for short-cuts. It’s just the way I am.
During tourist season, they bring visitors by boat from shore. You get to the top of the lighthouse by climbing a winding metal spiral staircase inside. The staircase leads up to the lantern room where the big light is. There’s a small door from there that opens to the walk-about, which is the platform outside the lantern room that the keeper uses to clean the glass.
I have the lighthouse all to myself this time of year and I can go almost anytime. I use it sometimes when I feel a lull coming on. It’s nice to go into and come out of a lull up there. I have to be careful to only do this at night or on days I know will be fully overcast, because we don’t control our lulls, our bodies do. But we feel when they are coming on and some can be as short as a half-hour. Most happen in the early a.m. around four.
I have to be careful as it could rain a hurricane and I wouldn't know it or feel it. The sun could come out in full force after my sunscreen has been washed off and I would be burned to a lovely shade of blackened ash, which the wind would blow away. All that would be left of me would be some charred bones. Wouldn’t that be a sight to find up there?
I love the ocean and everything about it. I love my swims in the ocean. Lily will swim with me in a lake but she does not like swimming in the ocean. Sharks scare the crap out of her even though I tell her they aren’t interested in us. She says “yeah, go watch Discovery Channel.” I’ve never been bothered and I know they are all around me out there. I think they sense I’m nothing to fool around with or they smell my scent in the water with the same result.
I love to hang with the whales. It’s so incredible-- you have no idea. They seem to like having me around. They are very graceful and gentle leviathans.
The best part of swimming with the whales is I’ll grab a fluke on the down-stroke and they’ll snap that tail with an up-stroke and send me flying in the air for hundreds of feet. It’s a freakin’ blast!
I can dive deep with the whales. I’ve bet I’ve gone down a thousand feet or so. Our strong skeletal structure and the additional oxygen in our blood make us capable of withstanding the atmospheric pressures down that deep. With our eyes being what they are I can see fairly well. There just isn’t much to see that far down. I mainly do it to bond with the whales. A number of the whales I know from year-to-year. They seem to sense or see me when I’m at the lighthouse as I’ve notice a number of them will spout water out of their blowholes to get my attention.
And the dolphins! They are so much fun. I hold my own swimming with them. They get a little frisky sometimes, let me tell you. They are very… umm… sexual creatures. Sorry, there’s no other way to say it.
Legend and myth has it that dolphins were humans that had enough of life on land and moved into the sea and that mer-people were the first forms of this evolution. Who knows if people really became mer-people who evolved into dolphins? Look at the platypus-- what the heck is that?! Anything is possible in my mind since we vampires are legend and myth as well.
No, I don’t wear clothes when swimming. The all together is the only way to swim. I like being naked when I swim. FREEDOM!
It’s not like anyone is going to ever see me where and when I swim. Well they might see a flying naked girl if I were to be playing with the whales! Haha!
As you are finding out, there are some good perks to being a vampire. I seem to be finding them all!
Back to the hunt.
The late-night manager should be leaving IHOP. I’ve been feeding on him for three years. He’s one of my steadies. I wait a month between feedings so his body can recover and it’s been a month. I just wait for him in the shadows of the darkened alcove at his front door. As soon as he slides the key in the door and opens it, I’m on him. It’s all very quick and quiet because he doesn’t have an alarm system. I even leave him in his bed. I’ll cover him with a blanket if it’s cold. It’s the least I can do for what he provides me. .
I can also always count on the early shift at the lumber mill. Some come early and catch a smoke at the picnic table in the employee area out back, right at the edge of the woods. I guess this is one benefit to vampires of tobacco use by humans. I hate the yucky tobacco smell of these humans but it’s one of those things you put up with to get to the good stuff. Like you having to eat your broccoli to get to the steak on your plate.
Last week, I pulled two humans from this table into the woods at the same time. They had their backs to the woods and with two quick neck strikes they were under and in the woods in less than thirty seconds. I did wait until they had put their cigarettes out, didn’t want to start a forest fire.
Anyway... off I go to the IHOP manager’s house. Wish me luck.
RED HAWK
The sun is barely up and I’ve got my sunscreen on. Everything I have says things about me and what I believe in. Peace. Love. Nature. Harmony. Christian thinks I’m the weirdest vampire ever. I’ll take that as a compliment. Anything not to be her, I’m all for.
I try to wear as many natural things as I can in our plastic and cement world. I am trying to be “planet-wise” in all my accessory choices. I’m trying as best I can at least.
I have to put on some of my “must have” things like my deerskin leather-cord necklace with my pure silver peace sign pendent. BTW: Silver has no adverse effects on us and neither does garlic… more vamp myths busted. Oh, holy water... all mythology bullcrap. Does bupkis to us. Nada. Trust me I know.
Also got my six charm-bracelets on. LOVES ‘EM! I made them myself. I’ve got some skills besides being a vampire. I think they’re pretty radrock. My favorite is the lighthouse charm of course. The dreamcatcher charm is a fave too. The bracelets are made of all-natural wood beads made from driftwood, so that’s as good as it gets.
I never said I didn’t like fashion. I try my best to wear earthy things - but a nice and quirky T-shirt that expresses my feelings I’ll definitely add to the mix. There’s this shark one that’s outrageously cool. It’s a teeth thing.
Lily loves expressive T’s too and she’s always giving me her hand-me downs. So we’re recycling clothes. You might try that too.
Oh yeah, I just bought some of the most sick hemp sneakers on the internet. It’s amazing what they are doing with hemp now. Well actually, it’s been in use for about five-thousand years. Hemp was used to make rope for ships before synthetics came about, so its durable. I bet you didn’t know the American Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.
The sneakers are an insanely intense blue color. Indigo blue they call it. The dye is a natural-dye made from woad. Woad is the wild mustard plant. You’d expect the color made from it to be yellow… but it’s blue as blue can be. Who figures these things out?
I’m having a moment here. Hold on. Something is filling my head. Okay, got it.
I don’t know why but I want the company of my old, blind, Indian friend before I go to school. I call him that because I don’t want to use the name that he gave me – FRANK. He’s definitely not a Frank. I know he has a real Indian name. Then again, he doesn’t know my real name either. I gave him the name Julie. I don’t look like a Julie but he doesn’t
